1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an alarm control apparatus which collects alarms from equipments of a plant, and which handles the alarms.
2. Description of the Related Art
Because of the spread of a distributed control system (hereinafter, abbreviated as DCS) and advancement of a field bus network, recently, self-diagnostic information (a message or an alarm) notified from a field equipment of a plant can be handled on the DCS.
Therefore, alarm control, such as early detection and early response to an abnormality in a field equipment, and integrated management of detailed statuses, is available by using an alarm control apparatus which is typified by a RPM (Plant Resource Manager) connected to the DCS for communication.
FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram showing a configuration example of a DCS to which a related alarm control apparatus is connected. The reference numeral 1 denotes a higher-level apparatus which executes operating and monitoring processes in the DCS, and which is connected to a control bus 2.
The reference numeral 3 denotes a control station which is connected to the control bus 2 to communicate with the higher-level apparatus 1, and also with field equipments (not shown) placed in a plant 4 to execute a control based on an application program.
The reference numeral 5 denotes a gateway which relays communication between the control bus 2 and a field bus 6 that operates on a different standard. The reference numeral 7 denotes a control station which forms a sub system, and which communicates with the higher-level apparatus 1 via the field bus 6 and the control bus 2, and also with field equipments (not shown) placed in the plant 4 to execute a control based on an application program.
The reference numeral AL1 denotes an alarm which is sent from the plant 4 to the control bus 2 via the control station 3, and AL2 denotes an alarm which is sent from the plant 4 to the control bus 2 via the control station 7 and the gateway 5.
The reference numeral 8 denotes an OPC (OLE for Process Control) server which is connected to the control bus 2, which collects the alarms AL1, AL2, and which passes data according to the OPC standard to the alarm control apparatus 9. The reference numeral 10 denotes an operator of the alarm control apparatus 9.
The reference numeral 11 denotes a general-purpose communication bus which is typified by Ethernet (registered trademark), and which is connected to the alarm control apparatus 9 and the higher-level apparatus 1, and 12 denotes a client PC which obtains delivery information from the alarm control apparatus via the general-purpose communication bus 11.
As required, also the higher-level apparatus 1 obtains the delivery information from the alarm control apparatus 9 via the general-purpose communication bus 11. The reference numeral 13 denotes a maintenance staff who patrols and maintains the plant 4, and who obtains the delivery information from the alarm control apparatus 9 via a mobile terminal 14, and 15 denotes an operating staff who operates and monitors the higher-level apparatus 1.
In the alarm control apparatus 9, 91 denotes data collecting and processing section for collecting the alarms AL1, AL2 which are sent from the OPC server 8, for performing required data processing on the alarms, and for storing the alarms into a database 92.
The reference numeral 93 denotes an application program which reads out alarm information of a predetermined time period that is stored in the database 92, which executes a process of analyzing the cause of a fault or the like, and which shows a result of the process to the operator 10 through a display device 94.
The reference numeral 95 denotes delivering section for reading out the alarm information stored in the database 92 on the basis of a predetermined delivery period or a delivery request, and for delivering the alarm information to the client PC 12, the mobile terminal 14 of the maintenance staff 13, and the higher-level apparatus 1.
JP-A-2005-84774 discloses an alarm control system which collects message data of alarms generated in a process, and which analyzes behaviors of the alarms.
In the related alarm control apparatus, only alarms (notifying that communication is disabled, that an equipment is partly broken down, that an equipment is not operating, and the like) generated by equipments of the DCS, and the alarms are delivered to the maintenance staff and clients in their original formats. Moreover, also information output from a program which diagnoses the equipments is collected, and the information is delivered in its original format.
Such modes of collecting and delivering alarms have the following problems.
(1) Information cannot be collected from an equipment which cannot spontaneously generate an alarm, such as an equipment according to HART (highway addressable remote transducer) standard.
(2) An alarm generated by an equipment indicates only the phenomenon that the alarm is generated, and does not include a cause of the occurrence of the phenomenon and information of handling the occurrence of the phenomenon.
(3) Diagnostic information included in an alarm from an equipment does not contain detail information indicating diagnosis contents, and hence the diagnostic information as it is cannot be used as management information.
(4) Information which is related to the status of an equipment, and which is found by a maintenance staff on patrol cannot be handled as an alarm. The information cannot be notified to, for example, all the maintenance staffs or an operating staff, or cannot be managed.(5) Formats of collected alarms are varied depending on venders of equipments or the like, and not standardized. When the user who uses the information wishes to display the information on a screen or perform a filtering process on the information, therefore, a troublesome process is required.